It's been the most...

...lovely day!

I went to bed last night at 9:30pm, slept until 7:30am, ate a quiet peaceful breakfast, then went to check on my hubby. I wasn't going to lay back down, but he looks so sweet and peaceful laying there that I kissed him and snuggled up for a second. Then he started cuddling up to me. After that, I just stayed put and enjoyed my sleepy hubby! Snuggling is definitely one of the perks of married life!

Woke up two hours later to find that Justin had sent me roses and they were on the front porch! (Love that man!) We ate breakfast (a second breakfast for me!) and enjoyed the roses. I cleaned the kitchen and Justin started mowing the grass. I joined him outside and cleaned up most of the beds I'm going to plant in. Came to find out, under all the dead leaves, I have chives, mint and lavender growing away, ready to be picked!

After yardwork, we did some errands, picked up a few things at BigLots!, came home and ate a scrumptious dinner. Justin is going to go fishing soon and I am going to sew. First up: making some maternity pants. It looks like only my belly and not my waist is going to grow, so I'm never going to fit into those six 6 and 8 pants...I need a 4! SO, might as well take a pair or two and practice making maternity pants. They'd be less annoying than wearing pants that are constantly falling down! Also going to make a belly band for my pants I don't want to convert over. Then if I'm not super tired, I'll play around with other stuff. We cleaned up the back room and it's SO much nicer to sew in there now.

A very simple day, full of necessary stuff...but all with my hubby and gorgeous weather. It was the best of everything!

Keys in the Car, Not my Pocket

Its been an interesting day.

I woke up, planned out my day, had a very awesome smoothie for breakfast and set out upon some Christmas errands. My last errands, might I add. My days left before Christmas are rapidly filling up. So crazy, but like always.

I ended up at Wal-Mart, because when do errands not end up at Wal-Mart? Anyway, the Wal-Mart I was at is on top of a hill. I apparently didn't realize how windy it is because I opened my door a smidge without holding onto it. The wind almost immediately pushed my door into the beautiful shiny red car next to me.

Oh no.
I cringed.
Inspected the damage.
Paint was scratched.
No ding.

Then, what to do? I started to look for a piece of paper to leave my info, when the owner walked up.

"Hi. Is this your car? I need to give you my insurance information, I just accidentally dinged your car with my door."

Then, while I was writing down information for her, the wind blew my door closed....with my keys and wallet on my front seat.

Sigh.

I called the police. They wouldn't come, because there was no one in the car. Then, I called my car insurance. We don't have road side assistance. Dang. Thought we did! Finally, I called my hubby in tears. He suggested I call his mom to come get the spare from him and bring it to me.

She's wonderful and she agreed. Unfortunately, Justin's work and Wal-Mart are about 40 minutes apart.

I can't leave the car because the keys and my wallet were in plain sight on the front seat.
It wasn't too cold out today, but because of that, I didn't bring a hat or a scarf.
I realized it was colder than I thought, really quickly.
But, I was ok.
Then it started to rain.

Double sigh.

Luckily it stopped and Diane came and rescued me.
My fingers were frozen, but defrosted nicely once I was back in the car and on my way home.
Yay for heaters and no one else in the car so I could blast the heat on high all the way home.

Odd day.

Abolishing Migraines

I feel like everything has been a whirlwind lately.

Justin is having surgery on Wednesday to open up his nasal passages. This will hopefully make his sleep apnea MUCH better, hopefully almost completely resolving it. If not, we still have a few other people to visit for him.

I found out I could test out of a class, studies, took the test, got a 71% when I needed an 80% and then realized I could have used the book. And I didn't. Yeah. I'm trying not to dwell on it. It's ok. Let it go. It's ok. Let it go. I'm just repeating that to myself, over and over til I believe it. And- well, I'm going to stop there, cause my heart rate is starting to rise. It's ok. Let it go. 

deep breath


My project at work is ongoing and going well. I just desperately need more data for it. Desperately. By the first week of November preferably. Data is such a pain to collect, I almost feel guilty asking people to help me out and collect it. But I do. Hopefully by the end of the year, this project will be wrapped up and I can stop coercing people to help me.

Finally, I started a new treatment plan for my migraines. I met with a new doctor, Dr. Shaw two days after the Women of Faith conference I went to. I had an idea of what he was going to ask me to do diet wise. He confirmed all that, threw in a few things I didn't anticipate and gave me vitamins. I'll do a post on the specifics later, but basically, I'm doing an elimination diet right now. I have taken all possible allergens out of my diet for a month. Hopefully in that time, my headaches will calm down and by the end of the month, I'll be able to add things back in one at a time and see if I react. This will help me pinpoint any more dietary triggers. In the meantime, I'm taking 15 pills of vitamins a day to help out my low stores, boost my energy and lower my migraine threshold.

The point of all this is not just to decrease my headaches, it's to get rid of them. A lot of days, that goal seems rather farfetched to me, but Dr. Shaw is pretty confident that we can get rid of them, or at least greatly lower the frequency and severity. I'll take either.

A little bit of awkwardness

I feel slightly awkward typing words on my blog again.
(Is it just me, or does the word "awkward" look especially weird tonight??)

I haven't typed on here since December 11, 2010. So, it's been a few months. I had stopped because there were other things that needed my attention and because we don't have the internet at my house and I felt stressed out trying to post blogs without the internet.

It was SO nice not to write my thoughts out for a while. Not to have to analyze what I was writing to make sure it was coming across the right way. Not to have to check my blog for spam comments and delete them. Not to even think about how my blog looked because no one was looking at it.

(I don't think I even paper journaled much in this time.)

::deep breath::

It was freeing. and fun.
and we've decided to actually pay for reliable internet access
(which is coming sometime between 1 and 4pm on Sunday)
SO, posting should be easier and so I might post more often.

Maybe.

I'm totally not guaranteeing that, as I am working full-time, in school full-time, a wife, in a Bible study and trying to learn how to quilt, bake bread, grow plants and can things. And sometimes I just feel lazy. And I want this to be fun for me. SO, it'll be as often as I want, when I have something to say. Which might be 4 times in one day or once a week.

We'll play it by ear and you can read if you want to or not if you don't want to.
And here's a picture of hubby and I, because I think it's cute!

Photo by J. Ann Kramer Photography at 

Nick and Heidi Poole's wedding a week or so ago. 

You can view the album of all the wedding guests and order prints

 by going to the flickr page here:

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/jakramer

Learning to Trust

A few weeks ago, Justin and I had a large fight and I ended up crying on the floor in our bedroom.

[Don't be too alarmed, I always end up crying on the floor. It makes me feel dramatically justified when I sit on the floor. Makes me feel more pathetic or something, I don't know. It's a quirk. Don't you love those?]

As I was sitting there with my Kleenex, I tried to figure out why I was crying so hard. Why was I reacting so emotionally to, truthfully, a small disagreement? The truth came out when Justin and I talked a little bit later. I was trying to explain why I was so upset when flying out of my mouth came, "How many fights can we have before you don't want to come home anymore?"

Shocking, but it matched what I had said earlier in the month right before Justin's granddad's funeral, when after a fight I looked at him and said, "I just don't know what I would do if I lost you."

I was struggling with trust. It's a difficult thing, not just sometimes, but I think all the time. Especially when people you love are involved. Loving anyone requires trusting the Lord with them. It also requires learning to trust them.

The Lord has really challenged me in this recently. I realized I was carrying a lot of stress, worrying about whether Justin would come home safe, worrying that I might make him really mad and he wouldn't want to be married anymore. The Lord was calling me to lay it all down at His feet. So I started praying, I started reading Matthew 6 and I started talk to Justin about it.

Through it all, the Lord gave me peace overflowing through everything. I remembered that He is good and faithful and above ALL things. That He loves me, and that is the most important thing. He reminded me of just how faithful He's been and how trustworthy He is. Remembering all of this, I felt loved and full of His peace. I can trust Him not only with myself, but now with Justin.

As we talked, Justin reassured me. That he loves me and that he's not going anywhere. His response to my shocking statements mentioned above were perfect. He looked at me, hugged me and said, "Just because we're fighting does not mean that I don't love you. I love you. I am not going anywhere. We're going to be married for a very long time."

I think the two men in my life are amazing and so patient with me. I am so grateful for the Lord AND to the Lord for Justin. Learning to trust now that I'm married has been a beautiful and hard thing, but it's been worth it. SO worth it.

What a Difference a Year Makes

For the last few months, I have just been in awe of how crazy (and wonderful!) my life has been over the last year! Oh my goodness, what a difference a year makes. So, without further ado, here's my year in review.

(haha, that rhymed. Not intentional, I promise.)

January 2008: Trying to make it through my first respiratory season at Children's Hospital, fresh off of orientation.
January 2009: Hanging out with Justin, reworking my resume to apply to work with an orphanage in Moldova and trying to work up the courage to tell Justin that it "just wasn't working".

February 2008: Planning, organizing and speaking at Ground Level's Girls Retreat 2008.
February 2009: Telling all my friends that I liked Justin now, and that I just might be in love with him.

March 2008: Had my first overnight hospital stay as a patient, was despairing of working night shifts, changing to a new migraine medication and had just gotten the BEST present ever, a dishwasher.
March 2009: My laptop BROKE, was working furiously on making things for Etsy, photographing them and just thinking I might be in love with Justin. Since he helped fix my computer and all...you know. AND, the BEST part was that he became my boyfriend (officially) after talking with both sets of my parents.

April 2008: Was in a car accident that hurt my back and then pulled it again a week later lifting a patient at work and got/bought a new camera for my birthday (early present) and was STILL working overnights, becoming convinced of my need for the Lord every day.
April 2009: Loving loving Justin, caught a gastro bug from Children's that Justin helped nurse me through, sent Justin off to Thailand with tears in my eyes, bawled on my floor on the fifth day that he was gone because I missed him so much and decided that I "for sure" needed to marry him. It was here that my heart was convinced and I KNEW I wanted to marry him.

May 2008: Turned 24, working overnight, lost my phone and getting increasingly FRUSTRATED with my single status, signed up for TWO online dating websites to ease my frustration and emailed with Justin online.
Mary 2009: Turned 25 without Justin, spent the most wonderful weekend with him when he got back the next day, was blissfully in love the entire month and was engaged on May 31st!

June 2008: Liking my job again, repainting my entryway, decided NOT to go back to college right now, was LOVING taking an oil painting class over the summer, spoke at Ground Level and surrendered Justin back to the Lord completely (with many tears) since we hadn't emailed in a while and I was pretty sure he was never going to talk to me again (and cause the Lord asked me to).
June 2009: Wedding spreadsheets, counting down the days until the wedding, wedding planning, engagement photos and dreaming about the wedding.

July 2008: Met a another guy online, scrubbed my shower clean of black mold with vinegar and ordered new books online about crocheting. Exciting.
July 2009: Wedding stress, premarital counseling, obsessing about having to use plastic tablecloths at the reception and beginning to pack and MOVE my apartment.

August 2008: My sister had back surgery, I bagged a patient for the first time, saw my first T&A bleed, attended The Call in Washington, DC, stopped talking to the other guy after the Lord tells me that "he's not for you" several times, realized (again) that the Lord was bigger than all my failings and worries and took my first vacation on my own in Tyler, TX.
August 2009: I barely blog anything because I am SO consumed with spending every waking minute with Justin, planning the wedding, ordering things, coordinating things and STILL COUNTING DOWN THE DAYS!

September 2008: Repainted and redecorated the spare bedroom, knit my first pair of socks and become more and more unhappy with just how....mundane my life is.
September 2009: I experience the second best day of my life, my wedding day, I go on a honeymoon and we have our first "real" fight being married. We both survive.

October 2008: I go kayaking for free, decide that work REALLY stinks and I HATE it and spend a women's retreat crying on the floor becuase I just can't see how the Lord is ever going to do what He's promised in my life. I feel boxed into my life and VERY "stuck" where I was.
October 2009: I decide that falling asleep and waking up next to my husband is the best thing in the world, we buy a Canon Rebel, I become a Certified Pediatric Nurse and make some really great homemade tomato soup.

November 2008: I catch a vomit in my bare hands for the first time at work, make some cute cupcakes, begin to work on what the Lord spoke to me about at the women's retreat AND I run into Justin at a church function, we recognize each other and he asks for my phone number.
November 2009: A patient falls on me at work and I hurt my back, I get a horrible gastro bug that Justin gets, too, Justin and I realized just how different we are, I plan to kidnap Bethany, and suffer through 11+ days of yucky toncillitus.

December 2008: Justin and I go out twice, including on Christmas Day to see a movie. It is incredibly awkward and I'm not so sure this is going to work out. I dye my hair shockingly BLACK and worry what Justin will think about it.
Decebmer 2009: Justins grandfather spends 10+ day in the ICU and passes away, we spend our first Christmas together, and we both still can't believe how incredibly blessed we are to be married and have each other.

Sigh.
One year makes a WORLD of difference and that fact comforts my little heart.
Jesus is amazing. Praise Him for this amazing life.

So excited to see what will happen in 2010!
Happy New Years!

Date Night

We have been working hard for the past week,
(well, longer than that, but more so this week)
and we finished packing up my house this afternoon.

Tomorrow we are moving.

So, tonight, we went on a date. (!!!)
It was perfect.
He is perfect.

We went to the movies and saw The Time Traveler's Wife.
I cried and laughed that I was crying.
Justin lovingly laughed, too.
It was a great moment.
I felt loved.

He's so good at this unconditional love thing.

Really.

Like Friday night, we were saying goodbye on my front steps as usual
and he just looked at me, with that LOOK!
The one that says he thinks I'm beautiful.
And then he said it.

The funny thing is, he didn't have to say it.
He's said it enough in the past, that I finally believe him.
When he looks at me, I FEEL beautiful.
No matter how I KNOW I look, I feel like the cutest girl on the earth.

Friday night, after we said goodbye, I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth.
(there is a mirror in there, the only one left in my house.)

Oh my goodness.

Mascara smudged all under my eyes, sweaty hair plastered to my forehead,
bangs sticking straight up under the headband I had pushed them back with.
(we'd been packing in my hot apartment all evening)

I laughed.

Because he had looked at me like that and
still smiled at me like I was the only beautiful girl on the planet.
He thought I was beautiful.

I told him tonight how much I appreciated that he can look
past all the makeup smudges and sweat and still call me beautiful.

His response?

"There's nothing to look past. You ARE beautiful."

Sigh. He melts me.
So you see....he is perfect.
and he's mine.

(thank you Jesus)

Finally, to top off the evening, the text he sent me
about five minutes after we'd parted for the night:

"ilyaimy!!!!!! I just can't get over how beautiful you are!"

(and I can't get over how amazing he is.)